What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day...

by Pearl Cleage

  Now I really felt like shit. Gerry’s messing with the Sewing Circus and Imani is still not tied to Joyce by anything but love. I told Joyce she should legally adopt Imani so they couldn’t ever take her back and she said she wants to, but it’s really complicated because they still can’t find Eartha and nobody knows the father. In the meantime, just the possibility of losing Imani makes Joyce very, very nervous. She’s only been with us three weeks and she’s already family. I asked Joyce what she would do if Mattie and Frank came to claim Imani.

  “Head for the hills,” Joyce said calmly.

  “Okay,” I said. “Just so we’ve got a plan.”

  • 4

  eddie took me into Ludington yesterday. It’s only forty miles or so, but I haven’t been there since we were kids. He had to go check on a job he’d done a month ago and when he asked me if I wanted to ride, I jumped at the chance. Maybe some of those stiff breezes coming in off Lake Michigan can blow away some of the bad vibes I’ve been carrying in spite of my best efforts.

  “Joyce didn’t put you up to this, did she?” I said, suddenly suspicious that this trip might be part of a coordinated effort.

  Eddie shook his head. “No. Why would she?”

  “I haven’t been such good company lately.”

  “Really? What do you do when you’re not being good company?”

  I considered the question. “I snarl a lot.”

  He nodded. “Well, she hasn’t mentioned it to me.”

  “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to do this.”

  “Do what?” He guided the truck easily around a patch of road construction.

  “Take me for a Sunday drive.”

  “It’s Tuesday,” he said.

  “Six of one, half a dozen of the other.” What was I talking about?

  “Was that a snarl?”

  He was teasing me and I liked it. “I warned you.”

  “That’s fair enough,” he said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  I waited while he went in to check the deck he’d built behind a little house tucked way off the main road in an acre or so of the most amazing pine trees. Of course, they wanted a deck. I’m surprised they weren’t living in a tree house.

  “Everything holding up?” I said when he jumped back in beside me.

  “Yep,” he said. “You hungry?”

  Was I?

  “I’ve got some fruit,” he said. “We could go down and sit by the lake if you want. The beach shouldn’t be crowded this time of day.”

  “Not on Tuesday,” I said, and he laughed. I did, too. I didn’t care if it was a plot to improve my disposition. It was working like a charm.

  • 5

  when eddie said he had fruit, that wasn’t the whole story. He had a picnic basket full of green grapes and golden ripe bananas, two perfect mangoes, a carton of strawberries, a couple of different kinds of cheese, and the best loaf of homemade pumpernickel bread I’d ever tasted. He also had a blanket for us to sit on and a bottle of some blend of exotic juices that made you feel tropical even in the decidedly midwestern environs of Ludington, Michigan.

  “What if I hadn’t been home to accept your invitation?” I said, glad that I was, but never content to leave well enough alone.

  “I’d still have to eat lunch,” he said. “I just wouldn’t be doing it in such good company.”

  “You eat this good all the time?”

  He grinned and handed me a plump strawberry, which I popped into my mouth by way of thanks. “Don’t you?”

  I had an instant mental picture of my regular eating habits. I’ve been trying to eat better since I got diagnosed, but I spent years surviving on fast food and an occasional salad. I ate on the run so often, I had to consciously slow down when somebody took me out to dinner or I’d be ordering dessert before they finished the salad.

  “No,” I said. “I really don’t.”

  “Why not?” He looked like he really wanted to know.

  “Not enough time?” I said, sounding uncertain even to myself.

  “Oh,” he said, spreading some kind of soft cheese on a small piece of pumpernickel and passing it to me like I’d asked for it.

  After we finished eating, we just sat there for a while, looking at the lake, watching the gulls, talking a little bit, but mostly just sitting there together. It was a lovely afternoon, and by the time we started back, I felt like I’d found a friend for life. Better late than never.

  • 6

  aretha came by looking for Joyce, but had to settle for me and Imani. Joyce was trying to scout out a central place for the Sewing Circus to have their next meeting. Other than the church, there weren’t many options.

  “Do you want to wait for her?” I said. Imani was asleep and I was up for some company.

  “Thanks,” she said, and accepted my offer of a cup of peppermint tea.

  “So are you ready for your trip to Interlochen?” I said, setting out the honey and two spoons.

  “Yeah,” she said, shaking her head no at the same time. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Why? Joyce said your portfolio is really good.”

  Aretha ducked her head and blushed with pride. It made her look even younger. “She did?”

  “She sure did.”

  “Well, that’s what she keeps telling me and I know that’s why they accepted me, but I guess I don’t believe it yet.” She sipped her tea and added another swirl of honey. “I wish my mom and dad could be here to see me,” she said.

  “They’d be proud of you,” I said.

  She nodded and stirred her tea.

  “How soon do you have to go?”

  “Ten days,” she said, brightening again. “They said we don’t have to bring anything except our clothes. They give you all the stuff you need when you get there.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “I’m sure it’s going to be a great experience for you.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Are you really a hairdresser?”

  “I used to be.”

  “What are you now?”

  I loved the directness of the question. I wished my answer could have been more straightforward, but this was a kid. I didn’t need to discuss my health with her.

  “I’m in transition,” I said. “I’m moving to San Francisco to consider my options.”

  She grinned. “That sounds real cool.”

  I laughed.

  “How long have you been wearing your hair short like that?”

  I ran my hand over my hair, glad I had learned to cut it myself without taking chunks out of the back. The secret is to get a mirror you can hang around your neck like harmonica players do so you have both hands free. “Five or six years,” I said.

  “For real?”

  “Honest to God. Why does that surprise you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just never saw anybody up close with their hair that short. You like it?”

  “I love it,” I said. “No fuss, no muss, no fuzz, no scuzz.”

  She giggled at that. “Well, you got the face for it, I guess.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know. You got a nice face.”

  “Everybody’s got a nice face,” I said. “Most of the time you just can’t see it under all that bad hair.”

  She considered this. “Weren’t you scared? What if you did it and didn’t like it?”

  “What’s the worst that can happen? It’ll grow back.”

  “It’d be one less thing to worry about, that’s for sure.”

  I looked at her smooth brown face. She had beautiful skin and big dark eyes. If anybody had the face for this hairstyle, Aretha did. She’d probably never had a good haircut in her life. A thought occurred to me.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “When you get ready to go to school, I’ll cut your hair for you.”

  “That short?” She looked intrigued, but a little doubtful.

  “Doesn’t have to be this short,” I said. “I’ll style it any wa
y you want. Something easy to keep so you won’t be up there worrying about your hair when you’re supposed to be contemplating the colors of the sunset.”

  “Would you really?” Her face begged me not to tease her and I heard the sound of Joyce’s car outside.

  “You’d be doing me a favor,” I said. “I don’t want to get rusty sitting around here all summer like a lady of leisure and lose my skills.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “And don’t rule out cutting it short. You’ve got the face for it.”

  The smile she gave me was all the proof I needed.

  • 7

  one of the good things about meditating is that it helps you spot your own bullshit much faster. The bad thing is, sometimes a little harmless bullshit is quite a pleasant diversion from what are invariably the much harsher realities of a bullshit-free existence. Maybe harsh is too strong a word. How about barren?

  I figured out why I’ve been so evil. I’m attracted to Eddie. Not curious about. Not affectionate toward. Attracted to, as in sexually. Talk about bad timing. I thought at first it was some kind of residual crush left over from my girlhood or just a Pavlovian response to a fine brother in close proximity, but it isn’t. It’s him specifically for real. Damn.

  Riding back from Ludington, I felt that thump of pulse between my legs that always alerts my sexual body to the presence of prey. I used to love that feeling. It announced the beginning of another round of first dates, late-night phone calls, slowly dawning (on his part) realizations of mutual interest, increasingly intense flirtation, and, finally, the sex. This process took a little time or a lot, depending on the brother’s tolerance and ability to play the game—everybody is not amused by extended foreplay—and whether my own interest was cerebral and sexual, or pretty much focused solely on how he’d be in bed.

  Men in whom I had no sexual interest were in another category altogether. I never allowed them to start the give-and-take everybody has to agree to if the seduction is to have some integrity to it. I think it’s cruel to encourage men when you have no real interest in them, no matter how many dinners they pay for or how many long-stemmed roses they have delivered to the office for maximum impressing of your girlfriends. It’s no crime not to lust after somebody just because they’re lusting after you. It’s only a crime when you use it against them.

  So now that I’ve admitted the facts, what am I going to do? First of all, I have no intention of having sex with Eddie Jefferson. I’m only going to be here a couple of months and I don’t need the complications sex always introduces. Sex changes everything between a man and a woman, and even though you say it won’t, you know damn well it will. Great sex will make you overlook many a terrible weakness for the sake of all that feel good. It definitely adds something exciting to the mix, but whether or not it’s worth the price you pay is the question to which I’ve never found an even halfway decent answer.

  If you ask somebody who’s hooked up with a man they love and the sex is good and he’s not acting a fool, the sister will tell you the rewards are so sweet they are worth a little compromise. But ask somebody who just got her heart broken for the third time since Christmas and she’ll tell you nothing beats curling up in bed alone with a magazine and a pint of Häagen-Dazs.

  And that’s not even counting all the safe-sex precautions that are now a part of my life for damn ever. Have you ever tried to figure out how to have any kind of satisfactory oral exchange while holding a latex dental dam over your sweet spot?

  I’m just not up for all that right now. Me and Wild Eddie seem to have the beginnings of a beautiful friendship. I’m going to leave it at that. Old habits are hard to break, but not impossible.

  • 8

  i had to have my doctor call from Atlanta to refill my damn prescriptions and the pharmacist in town didn’t waste any time spreading the news that I had “caught the HIV.” I went to the drugstore to pick it up and walked in on Gerry Anderson telling these two other old biddies how sad it was and how she just hoped I wasn’t contagious since we had so many young people in town and all.

  The druggist was standing there with the bottle of pills in his hand, showing it to them and holding it like it might explode if he jiggled it too hard. I was walking down a side aisle, so they didn’t see me until I stopped right in front of them and they gasped and fell back like they had seen Dracula coming up the front walk. I wanted to grab the back of Gerry’s head and give her a big, wet kiss, but I thought she might have a heart attack and I’d get prosecuted for murder, so I held out my hand to the pharmacist and said, “Don’t you have to take some kind of oath to stay out of people’s business when you fill their prescriptions?”

  He dropped it in my hand like a hot potato and mumbled something about how he was going to send Tyrone, his delivery boy, out to the house with it, but first he wanted to be sure it was all right with his grandmother.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” I said to him, and when he didn’t answer, I turned to Gerry. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  She looked flustered for a second, but she recovered quickly, offering me a sad smile. “Well, dear, my job is to err on the side of caution. Tyrone is our only grandchild . . .”

  “That’s not the way you get it,” I said, handing the pharmacist the money, which he took carefully so there wouldn’t be any possibility of him accidentally touching me.

  “Well, they really don’t know, now do they, dear?” Gerry said, pressing her luck.

  I looked at her and all of a sudden I felt my eyes start burning. This is the reason I left Atlanta in the first damn place! Couldn’t go anywhere without running into that wall of ignorance that can’t stop pretending even when it’s life and death to keep it up.

  I took a deep breath. I sure didn’t intend to cry in front of this crowd. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

  “Keep the change,” I said, walking right past Gerry and her friends and out the front door.

  When I got outside, Tyrone and Frank and the girl he’d been slapping around at the liquor store were leaning on Gerry’s car, which was parked right in front of mine. Looking at them made me feel tired. The games they were playing were so tired and they were playing them at such a rudimentary level that it was exhausting to watch.

  Frank started a loud stage whisper as I searched my purse for the keys, cursing myself for not already having them in hand.

  “I read about a bitch in Texas, man. Houston, I think it was Houston. When she found out she had that shit, she started giving away as much pussy as she could to pay back all the muthafuckas she thought might a give it to her.”

  I finally found my keys and clicked the locks open.

  “That’s some cold shit, man.” Frank laughed and shook his head. “I’d have to ice a bitch tried to fuck me with some AIDS. That’s some death pussy for sure. I don’t need no part of that shit, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  He looked at me as I got in and slammed the door.

  Yeah, I thought. I know exactly what you’re saying.

  • 9

  by the time I got home, the house was full of all twenty-six members of The Sewing Circus and their total of thirty-three children, including Imani, who was observing everything from the crook of Joyce’s arm. The members always shared a pot-luck meal and the kitchen was now a beehive of female food activity as the women laid out the communal feast. Joyce hadn’t found a new place, and the Rev was still ducking the meeting he had promised, but from the overflow crowd, it looked like being evicted from the fellowship hall was the best thing that had ever happened to TSC.

  I could hear them talking and teasing, calling their children, asking for a pan or a platter. Patrice asked who bought the jumbo hot dogs and Tomika answered something I couldn’t hear that made them all burst out laughing and start saying, “Hush, girl! Talking nasty in front of these kids! What’s wrong with you?”

  I had told Joyce I was going to run into town and pick up my prescr
iption, and be back in time for the meeting, but the last thing I needed tonight was a house full of bad haircuts and fussy two-year-olds. What I really wanted was a chance to watch the sunset and have a good long cry, which is what I told Joyce, except about the crying, of course. There was nothing she could do, so what was the point in worrying her? I told her I was just tired, but that was the wrong thing to say.

  “What is it?” Joyce has a way of looking at me real hard and asking me what’s wrong that is guaranteed to make me start crying before I get the first sentence out.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly. “I just need some time to myself. Okay?”

  She looked at me and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll be here.”

  I managed a smile at that. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said.

  Joyce gave me a quick hug and headed back inside and I started walking. Frank’s nasty mouth had upset me more than I wanted it to, and about halfway home I had to stop the car and get myself together with some deep breaths. I also indulged some really ugly wishes for bad stuff to happen to Frank, but I’m not proud of that, even though he deserves it.

  I figured I’d walk down by the lake until it got too dark and then cut through somebody’s yard and take the road back to Joyce’s. If I knew anything about Gerry Anderson, I knew she’d find a way to use me being positive in her fight against Joyce, and I had no interest in letting that happen. I figured the simplest solution was for me to go on to San Francisco a little sooner than I had planned. Joyce and I already had a great visit. I’d had a chance to meet Imani and remeet Eddie. But now it was starting to get weird and I just didn’t have the energy or the inclination for high drama. Maybe I’d come back Christmas when things settled down a little. I still hadn’t given up trying to get Joyce to move to the coast with me. No reason Imani couldn’t be a California girl.